About

The Personalised Cancer Medicine Program at Karolinska Institutet

The Personalised Cancer Medicine Program at Karolinska Institutet (KIPCM) is a research initiative with the primary task to strengthen the infrastructure for team science addressing PCM. 

The foundation of the activities is to create a strong network, especially between KI, Karolinska University Hospital (K) and Science for Life Laboratory (SciLifeLab), to facilitate the development of PCM as a leading treatment concept in academic cancer healthcare in Stockholm. It also serves the local contact point for collaborations with major cancer centers in Europe within the organization Cancer Core Europe.

The PCM Program is generously supported by The Cancer Research Funds of Radiumhemmet.

Action points in Summary

History 

The program was formed after an initiative taken by clinical researchers in 2012. In 2014 KICancer was contracted by Radiumhemmets Research Funds to act as a KI umbrella for the program. The core of the work is to bring together researchers at KI and SciLifeLab with clinical researchers at K for PCM team science. 

Karolinska Institutet is a medical university. Cancer research makes up 25% of the volume of research, including clinical research, biomedical research, epidemiology and nursing/health science. Approximately 160 groups in 15 of our 22 departments pursue cancer research full-time or partiallly. The cancer research is represented at the University level by trans-departmental organisations, KICancer Researchers network (KICancer, 2003 -2019), StratCan (2010-2019) and now Cancer Research KI (2019 -).

 

Organisation and Management

Since April 2019 the PCM program is formally organized under a working group (WG 4, chaired by Ingemar Ernberg) within the common organization “Cancer Research KI”.

The steering group makes decisions on strategies and key issues. It´s chair is the grant receiving PI for the program (Ingemar Ernberg). The steering group interacts with a reference group both in terms of mutual dissemination of information and advice on decisions. 

The operative work is handled by the executive group together with its task forces and the executive expert team. 

The program director (Claes Karlsson) leads and coordinates the daily work, facilitates and follows up on decisions and prepare future activities. This, in collaboration with the chairman of the steering group. 

Cancer Core Europe

Cancer Core Europe (CCE) is a legal association (since 2017) of seven leading cancer centers in Europe, with the major mission to reshape the cancer research model to ultimately increase the European Union’s competitiveness as a place to conduct cutting-edge research that’s translated to the clinic to deliver more personalised medicine.

The CCE Basket of Basket (BoB) trial started 2018. For the local work with the study, two oncologists, Luigi De Petris (local principal investigator) and Jeffrey Yachnin (head of the early clinical trial unit and subinvestigator) are partially financed by the PCM program. KI/K joined with the first genomic screening of patients during the summer of 2019. 

In collaboration with the PCM program, KI has developed a Molecular Tumor Board Portal (MTBP) for CCE and the BoB-trial. The MTBP is a clinical decision support tool that unifies the interpretation of the genomics data across CCE-centers and provides the framework to exchange and harness the results.

To facilitate the work with CCE, the PCM program has, since 2017, hired a local CCE-coordinator, Christina von Gertten, who is also part of the PCM-program’s executive group.

Achievements

– Establishment of the PCM program with a strong network within KI, K, SciLifeLab and other healthcare and academic institutions nationally and abroad.

– Identification of and collaboration with infrastructure of central importance for local PCM-research and clinical practice.

– Crucial support to PCM-focused clinical trials by managing team science and funding of strategic key personnel positions.

Calendar

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Datum: February 19, 2024

Plats:

Information: CaReKI PI-retreat

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Datum: February 5, 2024

Plats: IRCCS - Istituto Nazionale dei Tumori, Milano

Information: Cancer Core Europe’s Annual Meeting 2024

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Datum: January 31, 2024

Plats: Life City, Solnavägen 3H, Solna

Information: Panel: The future of health: How can patient reported data lead to improved treatments?